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Is it possible that Patur’s name just might be a freudian slip?? lol
Please explain how it could be worse to follow the Torah than to change a minhag.
This is nonsensical, circular logic, or gruesomely misleading (but still nonsensical). By definition, if Mesorah (or anything else legitimate halachically) says something, that is what the Torah says to do; that is following the Torah. The comparison that you can make, if this is what you meant, is between following whats written/stated b’feirush in the Torah, but devoid of any other context, and changing a minhag. However, that comparison is absurd because being written in the Torah does not give it any “chumra” over a minhag vis a vis whether Mesorah talks to it (besides for the language being criminally misleading by expressing “source for the mitzva” as “following the Torah”).
I could respond to your R’ Chaim quote with, “Do you think you know the Sugya better than the Maharal to say anything to the contrary?”
I think i might have misunderstood your point. (I thought you were saying that you could say the same thing about R’ Chaim.) But it still makes no sense. From the perspective of someone living today, there is a concept of “hilchisa kebasrai” (the scope and definition of which is beyond the scope of the CR). Following R’ Chaim is not saying that you think the Maharal is wrong.
I ask you again to provide a source anywhere in kol hatorah kula (I know that’s exceedingly redundant) that you need a mesorah to allow you to do a mitzva, or that if people were unable to do a mitzva for a period of time then it becomes batel mevutal leolam va’ed.
I never claimed either. So naturally I did not provide a source. You are inventing reasons on your own. And you’re using language that implies a very different halachic basis for what I’m saying.
Again it is clear from the gedolei rishonim and acharonim that a mesorah is not necessary – they talk about Techeiles coming back.
Nothing is clear from the rishonim and acharonim. There are many, many factors that are relevant in such a shailah that you have no idea of. You need a rebbe to learn rishonim and acharonim too. Just because they wrote about techeiles being reinstituted does not mean that we nowadays have a basis anymore to do so.
That also means that they held that “nignaz” does not mean hidden away forever. In fact the Eitz Yosef on the Midrash says that “nignaz” means forgotten, based on Rashi in Pesachim
This is useless — R’ Chaim will still wipe the floor with you. Repeating your kashas on him doesn’t add anything — that his approach seems very docheik has already been documented in this thread.
Also if you read R’ Elyashiv’s teshuva and R’ Shternbuch’s teshuva, although they come out against techeiles, there is no mention of mesorah.
So?? It is a big machlokes between mesorahs and gedolim what a mesorah says, can say, and how to apply it. Like I said before, just go ask someone credible who desists from techeiles on the basis of Mesorah to explain it.
The very claim that there is a mesorah here is illogical. The fact that something was done or not done doesn’t make it “The Mesorah”. In the concentration camps people were forced to work on shabbos. Does that make it that now the Mesorah is to not keep shabbos? Obviously not. Something done under duress is simply something done under duress. It is unfortunate that sometimes we don’t have the ability to keep the entire Torah. But how could you even suggest that that creates a mesorah to not keep the Torah?!
Again, you are inventing you own havanah in Mesorahs to justify including Mesorah as relevant “illogical”. I never presented any parameters of what makes something a part of a Mesorah. The fact that something was done or not done doesn’t make it “The Mesorah”. You have no basis whatsoever for such a statement.
The truth is, sometimes that is true and sometimes it’s not. I don’t claim to know or understand the parameters of when it’s one or the other, though.
Furthermore, I never claimed anything specific to “THE mesorah”.
But how could you even suggest that that creates a mesorah to not keep the Torah?! I didn’t claim that as a reason [in it’s general form the way you are presenting it]. And the comparison to Shabbos and the Holocaust is beyond absurd. To point out a few of the glaring canyons separating them from techeiles: 1- chiyuv misah; 2- an issur which 2b- has an attendant action vs a non-issur that is passive in nature; 3- a few years of “mitzva loss” vs hundreds; 4- the nature of the conditions that caused the “loss”. etc, etc, etc, etc.
“You are arbitrarily making up this distinction between intended discontinuation and passive discontinuation. Who said that is even a relevant criterion??”
If you can’t understand the difference between something that was leachatchila b’shita done and something that we was done unwillingly and for no other reason than that it was impossible to do otherwise, then as they say “you can bring the horse to the water but you can’t make it drink”.
You’re missing the point. Yes, it is obvious that such a distinction exists. But who said that being passively discontinued is grounds to say that there is no basis for what was discontinued to fall under the ambit of Mesora?? In which case your chakira is irrelevant because despite having been lost due to tragic circumstances, techeiles is not by dint of that outside the ambit of Mesora.
Again you are laboring under the false impression that halacha says not to wear Techeiles.
Not true. What I’m saying is only on the tzad that techeiles is legitimately being suppressed. If Rabbeinu Yonah held, in his day and age, that it was improper, fine. But that is no raya to us bizman hazeh. So my point still stands — Rabbeinu Yona expected the reader to have enough common sense to understand that he wasn’t referring to a (perhaps from his perspective purely theoretical) different situation where halacha would indicate otherwise, which on the tzad to keep the statu quo, it does so indicate.
But you have yet to provide a single source for such a bold claim.
I gave two – R’ Chaim and Mesorah. But from a halacha lemaisa perspective, as long as there are legitimate poskim/gedolim who hold (it’s ok) not to wear techeiles, there is halachic grounds not to, and therefore Rabbeinu Yona does not apply.
Furthermore, the Radzyner Rebbe says that this Rabbeinu Yona is SPECIFICALLY talking about Techeiles, considering that there is no other mitzva that was not done by your ancestors and city.
1- Is he the only pshat given in Rabbeinu Yona?
2- Even if yes, it is a valid argument that he wrote it almost 1000 years ago, and there are plenty of differences betw. now and then. (And you have no basis to invent that “but mesora is mesora!! what he held then he would hold now” etc, etc.)
“Perhaps one can add one who says ‘I will invent my own methodology of understanding Torah concepts and textual statements’.”
If you would research this topic you will find that I can take very little credit for inventing anything about Techeiles. Basically anything you can say for either side has been said already.
I was not referring to techeiles. I was referring to your stance about Mesora and the halchic process.
And contrary to what you think, we are not claiming that mesorah does not have depth, — in ways that conform to your preconceived conceptions about Mesora — nor are we chas veshalom being mezalzel mesorah in any way shape or form — intentionally. — That is what we call not having a brain and just roboticaly copying the things you see with no havana. Mesorah does not mean blindly doing everything exactly as it was always done. That is what we call not having a brain and just roboticaly copying the things you see with no havana. — Agreed.
Mesorah is understanding why we do things and applying the reasoning to guide life decisions.
That’s your own very limited and very general definition. While part of a Mesorah is its methodology of prioritizing different factors, that is hardly the only thing. Mesorah can say something without a clear reason why, and that’s not by definition illegitimate. And there’s alot more to say. Again go ask someone.
Now we have a shaila about wearing Techeiles. The rule of safek d’oraisa l’chumra posits that the burden of proof is on you to PROVE that we should not do the mitzva. We do not have to PROVE that we should do the mitzva because by a mitzva d’oraisa the default position is if we can’t prove either way then you have to do the mitzva. Therefore, the burden of proof is on you to prove that “The Mesorah” is against Techeiles. Until then, safek d’oraisa l’chumra prevails.
This is beyond absurd. Mesorah, by it’s very nature, can change the default muchzak. Mesorah says that this safek was already addressed by earlier people. Therefore, legabay us, it is not considered an ongoing halachic safek (unless a safek arises within what the Mesorah itself is saying). Also, Mesora can function as a birur. Also in which case the safek is removed.
And this entire argument inherently does not get off the ground. You don’t choose whether or not to follow a Mesorah or Rabbe because of an SDL which is against the particular Mesorah. And for those who follow said Mesorah, there is no safek in the first place as to what to do. Which means that this is no different than any other shaila about a D’Oraysa — we don’t say choose the posek who paskens lechumra!! So your argument talks to no one.
Just to add Some more differences in this comparison to shabbos in a concentration camp:
5- techeiles was all Jews, the holocaust was not even close; 6- techeiles the cause of cessation was a lack of knowledge, meaning that the cause isn’t necessary to be constantly happening; shabbos is only stopped due to ongoing constant active suppression, the moment of whose removal the problem blocking shabbos ceases to exist and by definition proper observance is restored.
I haven’t been following everything but I saw some talk about Mesorah vs. sdl. I think someone said that Mesorah changes the chazakah and therefore removes the safek. I think that’s a valid point but it doesn’t seem to apply here. Correct me if I’m wrong, but we don’t have a Mesorah that what people use today ISN’T techeiles… we just don’t have a Mesorah telling us what IS techeilies… meaning that things that meet the halachic criteria can be techeiles, we’re just not 100% positive because we lack a Mesorah. In other words, it’s a safek. For all we know, when Mashiach comes, we’ll find out that it really is techeies… there’s no Mesorah contradicting that. It seems to me that sdl would fit very nicely here.
Putting the whole mesorah thing aside, unless I missed something I don’t think anyone paskens that one may NOT wear Techeiles; even those who don’t wear it don’t hold it is assur. Having said that, assuming you find the supporting evidence convincing (which it most certainly is), wouldn’t you WANT to wear Techeiles? Don’t you feel privileged to live in a generation that has the opportunity to perform a mitzvah our ancestors only dreamed about? If your great-great-great-grandparents were alive today, do you think they would look for reasons not to wear it or jump at the first opportunity? To me it just seems like many people are looking for all these reasons and excuses not to wear it (i.e. mesorah), which I think is the result of not WANTING to wear it – and I don’t understand why any Torah-observant Jew would want to pass up an opportunity to perform any mitzvah (let alone one as easy and beautiful as this).
)Since there was a time when the mitzva was unable to be done, that creates a mesorah to not do this mitzva.
I never said that. It could just be that theres a reluctance to change on anything, and that could well be the sole basis upon which a Mesorah can suppress techeiles. Nothing to do with a mitzva-specific mesorah not to do it. It could also be that the reluctance increases as time goes on.
As far as “who these mysterious daas torah gedolim are”, go ask a R”Y whose yeshiva that does not wear techeiles because of Mesora.
“Just because they wrote about techeiles being reinstituted does not mean that we nowadays have a basis anymore to do so.”
I never claimed that this gives us the right to reinstitute anything. All I am proving from here is that they obviously felt that we could have Techeiles despite all your claims about mesorah. It’s not like you just discovered the concept of mesorah and when the rishonim and acharonim wrote about this there was no such issue.
My point was that there is no raya from these rishonim that we absolutely can. I never claimed that mesorah makes it impossible to have by definition, just that it could be depending on what your mesora is, etc. So what you’re saying is at best semantics, because yo still have no raya from these rishonim.
“This is useless — R’ Chaim will still wipe the floor with you.”
R’ Chaim can wipe the floor with me from today to tomorrow. That doesn’t change the fact that the Radvaz says that the chilazon can still be around and that the Maharil says that it’s easy to rediscover with the simanim.
What is the therefore of this??
If I wanted to be like you I could just say that you are arbitrarily making up distinctions that may be irrelevant. But I won’t.
No you can’t, because I’m on defense. On defense, sensible distinctions are assumed relevant until proven otherwise. You, on the other hand, are on offense against Mesorah being able to adjucate this issue, so you have the burden to prove it is a relevant distinction.
Your fourth objection is stam not true because it was the same conditions – persecution of the Jews – that led to both.
If you want to only look at it from the most general perspective possible, than that’s a reasonable statement. But it’s absurd to think that the nature of the persecution was the same. Stuffing millions into CC’s while inhuman, does not create, for instance, the intense confusion and bilbul that constantly being on the move / run does. Which might be relevant. Which on defense is all I need.
Your third objection only has weight if you can show that hundreds of years of not doing something is mevatel it, which you have already agreed that you cannot show.
This is deeply flawed logic. The objection has weight as long as you can’t disprove it (offensedefense). If you want to shlug up using mesorah, you have to understand it first. You can’t assume the default is that mesorah works in the ways & says what you think it should.
“Not true. What I’m saying is only on the tzad that techeiles is legitimately being suppressed. If Rabbeinu Yonah held, in his day and age, that it was improper, fine. But that is no raya to us bizman hazeh.”
To make such a claim you would have to explain what changed from then to bizman hazeh.
That’s not true. This svara of “times changed” is one of the most fundemental and nuanced svaras dealing with how to properly adapt mesorah to constantly changing times. It is obvious to even a five year old that there have been many significant changes and evolutions across a broad spectrum of inyanim, many of which are plausibly relevant. The R”Y’s who follow the mesoras have to be able to answer it though. So ask them.
“Rabbeinu Yona expected the reader to have enough common sense to understand that he wasn’t referring to a (perhaps from his perspective purely theoretical) different situation where halacha would indicate otherwise, which on the tzad to keep the statu quo, it does so indicate.”
Again, you have yet to show that there is a tzad to keep the status quo.
I did!!!!!!!!! The existence of a shitta that one shouldn’t or doesn’t have to based on Mesorah, or nignaz!!! Once either of these shitta’s exist, than the tzad is demonstrated to be valid. Again you’re making a logic error. You can’t use R’ Yona as a raya to undermine the the shitta itself!!
“I was not referring to techeiles. I was referring to your stance about Mesora and the halchic process.”
I was also referring to my stance about mesorah and the halachic process when I said that I can’t take any credit for making anything up.
Who ever said such broad absolute statements about how mesoras can work?? Or that R’ Chaim’s pshat does not even constitute a legitimate shitta in what is a halacha lemaisa debate????????
You may have completely missed my point. You are claiming that the Mesorah makes it not a safek. But the safek that I am talking about is gufa whether mesorah discusses this issue. If you can’t prove that it does then there is a safek that it might not in which case we would have to wear Techeiles. So as I said, until you can prove that the mesorah is against Techeiles, safek d’oraisa l’chumra prevails.
Huh??? There are quite a few mesoras around today. I don’t think any of the R”Y or gedolim who are the primary bearers of them have any “sfeikos” about their mesoros. If your mesora says “don’t change”, for whatever reason, than you don’t, plain and simple. SDL has no place in that equation.
Don’t tell me safek d’oraisa l’chumra. because there is also the safek of wether he will be over Bal Tosef. later when moshiach comes and he finds out what he was wearing was not Techeiles he will be over Bal Tosef for saying his way of Techeiles was correct. when in reality it wasn’t.
RI- what bal tosif? The strings are allowed to be any color. There is a minhag and a chumra that the color of the strings should match the color of the beged, but you could technically have other colors and still be yotzei tzitzis without violating bal tosif. IMHO, it makes sense to say that safek deoraysa lechumra overrides that minhag.
Personally, I don’t wear techeiles, but for no other reason than most of our gedolim don’t. But from a logical and halachic perspective, all the arguments point to wearing techeiles.
TU731: Your dismissal of Rishonim’s opinions as being irrelevant today is more than reprehensible. Unless you can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the Metziyus has changed to such an extent that their statements are no longer relevant, then what they say is far more binding than just about anything else we have. To dismiss Rabbeinu Yonah as being outdated is beyond arrogant and misguided.
Also, there is a huge difference between saying that a Shittah is Dachuk and less Pashut and therefore not necessarily what we should follow when a more Pashut Shittah exists and between saying that said Shittah is invalid. You seem incapable of distinguishing between not Paskening like a Shittah and not being Gores it.
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